In a content delivery network (CDN), such as Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) networks, content to be transmitted to an end user device (also called a client device herein) may be transmitted using the Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) communication standard. A computing apparatus called a streaming server transmits an RTP stream of packets to a client device as part of a streaming session for certain content (audio, video, etc.) requested by the client device.
From time to time, a streaming server may fail due to hardware or software errors. Streaming server failure causes interruption of service to all the client devices that the streaming server was serving to prior to the failure. Even when other streaming servers with access to “mirrored” content are available, current failover techniques require that an end-user at the client device initiate a new streaming session and then seek to the point at which the original session was interrupted. Thus, user intervention is required to restore the original session.
It is desirable to provide a scheme for responding to a streaming server failure in a manner that is transparent to the client devices and does not require user intervention or initiation.